The program depicted a 45-year-old woman named Maude Findlay (Beatrice
Arthur) who discovers she is pregnant and opts for an abortion.
To comfort Maude, her grown daughter said "When
you were young, abortion was a dirty word. It's not anymore."

Two CBS affiliates canceled the episodes and 32 CBS affiliates were pressured
not to rerun the segments in the summer of 1973 by anti-abortion factions.

The second airing of the program gave the show a 41 percent share with 65
million people tuning in. The first time the show aired CBS received 7,000
letters; the second time around 17,000 letters of protest poured in.

This program appeared at a time when the Supreme Court had not yet protected
legalized abortion (The Roe vs. Wade decision was still one year away).
Reportedly, Pro-Life groups mailed Norman Lear photographs of aborted fetuses in
protest.

TRIVIA NOTE:
In 1960, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) approves the first oral contraceptives for
marketing in the United States, and "The Pill"
is commercially produced in the US for the first
time.

In 1964, Patricia "Pat" Matthews (Susan Trustman)
from the fictional Midwestern town of Bay City
on the soap opera ANOTHER WORLD has an abortion
(at the time an "illegal operation") at the
insistence of Tom Baxter, her playboy boyfriend.

After the abortion, Pat learns that she may be
sterile because of the operation and she kills
him in a fit of rage upon discovering he never
intended to marry her. Charged with murder, she
is acquitted. Pat then marries her attorney and
has twins.

This soap opera was also one of the first to depict themes of homosexuality,
and teenage prostitution (TV Guide
4/4/92 p.13)

TVs first (then illegal) abortion operation aired in 1964 on the NBC serial
ANOTHER WORLD when Pat Matthew's boyfriend, Tom Baxter talked Pat into having an
abortion-and was later killed by her.

In 1973, Erica Kane (Susan Lucci) featured on
the soap opera ALL MY CHILDREN had daytime TV's first legal abortion. Erica Kane
sought to terminate her baby because she feared gaining weight and compromising
her modeling career.